The one who notices, is the one who shifts.
It's easy to get caught in people's stories and versions of reality. When people serve us a platter of their own interpretation of a script, the unsuspecting mind says thank you, and drinks it up as truth. If the truth is ugly, we might even say, wow thank you for warning me! Instead of, ''why would you drag me into this negativity?''.
Uncertainty reduction theory teaches us that people have an inherent need to reduce uncertainty at all costs. This is where anxiety stems from, and other sufferings like craving, the need to know the answers to a future outcome whose constituents we have little control over.
If we lack direct information there is a gap that is ripe to be filled by the information of other people's stories. Information we didn't think we needed. To compensate for the digression of accepting unsolicited news, which on some level we are conscious of, we seek ways to embrace this information, when really, the person who is playing us this muzak had the choice to grow peaceful instead.
I'll make a concrete example. Bob and Mary had a spat, so Mary spoke to Sarah about it. Sarah is not a fan of Bob, so she calls John and tells him all about Bob's wrongdoings with her own spin on things with good intention, as she truly believes, for whatever reason based on her personally triggered history with Bob, that he is not a good person and others must be warned. She also wants to make sure John remains on her side in case Bob tries to tell his story. John who had previously been neutral and marginally involved with Bob, suddenly has information that makes him question him. Now John is distrustful of Bob with little reason to justify it. Shame because prior to this neither of them had any beef and perhaps they could have been great friends, or collaborated on a great project together.
Using gossip as an exchange or bonding tool to get ahead for manipulation to get what we want, talking about the juicy negative with someone, the other person gets excited about it, embedding that negativity into an associated sense of positivity and reinforcement, which promotes the negative behavior that they tell each other that they don't want to do. But these actions which are energetic actions actually boost up the activity. The vibration in these things are low and it's a trap to get caught up, getting too much into them and forgetting our mission, allowing our belief systems to be polluted and moral compass off kiltered by allowing such information in.
Walking a path of light, means not having all the answers, but remaining firm in our virtues. It can be uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to tell someone to stop involving us in their drama, it's not easy to be the one to say ''I believe you are perpetuating your own pain, stop involving me on what you could be preventing right now. You have the ability to transform it and everyone can win.''. It takes courage to even walk away when such a person does not accept our response. But! We must use our voice if it's called for.
Let's close those gossip cycles and the drama to make space for purity and mission. Distorted and manipulated information drown out love. Which resources do we wish to energize?
Let's set forth on a path that brings lazer light to moments of darkness.
